


Into the Dark

by AmnesiaticRoses



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Realities, Gen, Nightmares, Season 2
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-02 22:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13328130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmnesiaticRoses/pseuds/AmnesiaticRoses
Summary: Voltron has responded a distress call, but things have gone terribly, terribly wrong. And unless the team can work out just HOW wrong, it could spell the end for all of them.





	1. Wondering, Fearing, Doubting, Dreaming...

Hunk blinked awake, trying to make the weird slurry of colors in front of him resolve into something that made sense.   _ Who put a neon sign over my bed?  _

As if that weren’t enough, someone was shouting, loud enough that if it kept up, there was no way he would get any more sleep today. Why couldn't people keep it down to one of the duller roars and let a man get some sleep?

Not that his bed was feeling very comfortable, right now. When had it gotten so stiff? And... why was he curled over like this? And why did his pillow feel like it was made out of steel?

With a groan, he straightened up. A little more distance let the swirl of lights resolve into the cockpit of Yellow, awash in those red lights that said the plan had officially gone down the toilet.

"Woah, was I out?" Hunk asked, a sharp jolt of fear chasing most of the muzziness from his brain.

The comm in his helmet crackled, then Pidge's voice came through -- the shouter from before, his brain realized belatedly. "Hunk! Oh man, when you took that cannon shot and got knocked through that asteroid, we were worried! Where ARE you?"

Asteroid? Now that she mentioned it, he could see the bits of rock floating like a haze in front of Yellow's head. Maybe the fuzziness in his brain wasn't quiiiite gone yet. Great, had he managed to get concussed before the fight even really got started? He glanced at the consol. "Um... I think not too far. Hang on, and-"

He cut himself off when he heard her voice come through again, this time muttering an Altean curse in low tones (or at least, he thought it was a curse. It  _ sounded _ like a curse, even if he had no idea what it actually meant.)

"Pidge?" he asked, trying to get Yellow oriented toward the rest of the team, but something was wrong, the console was responding sluggishly. Pidge had mentioned a cannon. Could he have taken a huge hit that somehow knocked him far away? Like...  _ really _ far away? But- No. There it was. Yellow's scans had finally found Green. Green  _ and _ the other lions. They were all bunched up, apparently landed on a planet. How long had he been out? And what were they doing here? His mind rejected his attempts to remember. Great.

"Hunk, I think we've tripped some sort of alarm." Her voice was barely a breath. Were there people in there with her? Was she hiding? Oh man... "We really need you here. Like, now."

He began guiding Yellow toward her location, but they were moving slow, slower than usual. One of the thrusters was either damaged or clogged, Hunk felt sure, and the readout suggested severe damage along the right flank was having an added impact on steering. This was not the time to be limping, but it was what it was right now. So...

"I'm coming," he said, keeping his voice low as Yellow arced through the void.

_________________________

Pidge crouched behind a console, bayard in hand, wondering if Galra hearing was good enough to detect a human heartbeat in a room full of humming surveillance equipment. She could hear footsteps - three sets, she was sure - moving in fits and starts through the room. It sounded like they were doing something at each of the terminals at the front of the room in turn.

The first bank had looked markedly different from the second and third ones - she thought it was probably internal surveillance, while the ones back here, where she was now hiding, were more long-range sensors and communications, as well as the longer-term storage databanks.

She really hoped so. She hadn't had a chance to check before she'd heard the door starting to open again.  She'd just managed to duck out of sight before a trio of bored-sounding Galra had come in. They seemed focused on that first bank - maybe they wouldn't work their way around to where she huddled under a surprisingly normal-looking desk.

Yet again, one of her three unwanted visitors took a few steps. A moment later, the other two followed in near-perfect unison. A series of taps and beeps followed as they did whatever they were doing at the final of the first-row stations.  The three made small talk as they worked - about shift assignments, some sort of sport she'd never heard of, just stupid stuff.

_ Come on, leave. Leave! _

A few more footsteps from the first one, then a mirror of it from the other two. Were they coming closer? Or were they...

She heard the pneumatic hiss of the door sliding open. More footsteps. Another hiss.

Silence.

_ Thank you _ , she said mentally to whatever space god watched over fools and Voltron paladins. Cautiously, she popped her head up and surveyed the room just in case, but the three Galra were gone. Breathing a sigh of relief so huge she could feel it to her toes, she moved to the console she'd already booted up and dug into the encryption.

Well,  _ dug  _ wasn't the right word. Galra security, once you learned the basics, was laughably uneven. Some places, it was tight as a drum. Want to learn what they know about  Voltron, for instance? You were going to need at  _ least _ a few hours and a good dose of luck. Information about their command structure and important members? Ditto. But data on their lowly prisoners, the ones with nothing of immediate use to them? she'd dug into enough of those files that she thought she could do it blindfolded at this point.

And this time, she just knew _ , this time _ they had to have information on her father and Matt. They had to know where they were being held. They had to tell her where to find them and get them safe.

While her program did its thing, she got onto the comm. "Got the program running. I’ll have cameras in a minute. How are you guys doing?"

_______

Lance crouched in the corner of a winding path, able to see only a short way in either direction, but, thankfully, also only able to be SEEN from that short distance as well. Perfect place for a little breather.

"Everything's going well here," he said into his communicator. "You know yet if your family's here?"

A pause, longer than he expected, extended over the communicator. Then, "No, not yet." She sounded... here couldn't quite place it. A little distant? "But by the time you get there, I'll know if they're here, and where exactly. And you can get them out."

It wasn't a question, but at the same time, it kinda was. "Come on, Pidge, trust me," he said, bravado creeping into his voice. "If they're here, I'll get them out and keep them safe. Just let me know as soon as you locate them, okay?"

"You got it."

Less hesitation. Good. She should rest easy. He wouldn't let anything happen - not to family.

Of course, he still needed to get down to the cells.  Knowing their location wouldn't do much good if he was on the other side of the compound. Lance started creeping along the hall again, keeping an ear out for footsteps. Luckily, this place wasn't all THAT big.

Course, it would also have been nice to have someone here with him. You know. Just to watch his back. Maybe Shiro? Or Hunk. Or... no, not Keith. He'd just insist on doing things his way, and who needed that to deal with? He'd be much better off without that. He had any trouble under control. Heck, he could see it in his mind ... a guard hearing a small noise, coming around the corner and boom! Precision shot from Lance, resident sharpshooter.

Mind thus occupied, he came around the corner to find three Galra standing in a loose formation. They had the attitude of a bunch of guys talking shop around the water cooler. At least, until they realized there was a paladin of Voltron at the other end of the hall. Then they had the attitude of guys looking to earn a promotion.

Great. Juuuuust great.

He ducked back around the corner, fingers gripping his bayard in a totally-not-worried death grip. Footsteps started - first one, then the other two behind it. Lance pictured the hallway. A couple doorways offered minimal cover, but it didn't sound like they were using the advantage. Charging blindly, expecting to use superior numbers to overwhelm him. Lance narrowed his eyes - he didn't dare close them all the way - and breathed in slowly and out slowly. Ready?

Then it didn't matter if he was ready -- they were here, ready or not. He listened, then saw a shadow and fired.

The lead Galra stepped right into his line of fire just as his finger finished pulling the trigger. The shot caught the enemy high on the thigh, sending it pitching forward. One of its companions was quick enough to jump over him, but not quick enough to also draw a bead on Lance before the paladin drew a bead on it. The third stumbled over its leader, falling to the ground in such a comical heap that Lance almost felt bad about shooting it  to keep it from running before he could tie it up.

But as he bound the three of them, he did spare a moment to change his mind. He  _ did _ wish Keith had been here, just to see how awesome he'd just been.

________________

Keith sighed and gave thanks that Lance wasn't here.

How were there so many Galra on this one, small outpost? The distress call hadn't indicated anything like this force, but it seemed like around every corner, he sighted yet another patrol. Still he'd been able to avoid actually being seen until... well, about ten seconds ago.

What sort of idiot put a motion-sensor door immediately around a corner? He'd ducked into a side hallway  to hide from one patrol, and the next second found himself staring at four soldiers sprawled out in surprisingly casual poses around a table in what appeared to be a break room. One of them had stared back at him over the rim of a cup. 

Seriously, who put a motion sensor door RIGHT around a corner? The thing had to be opening and closing all the time, he had thought numbly as the one Galra slowly lowered his cup.

Then came the running.

Five minutes later, he was crouched in what had probably been a supply closet, but had since been cleared out. Something that looked a little like a water spigot was still sticking out of one wall though, over an empty stone basin. Keith crouched by the door, one ear to the metal.

Silence reigned on the other side. Maybe he'd lost them. He couldn't relax yet, but at least he could maybe catch his breath.

Leaning back against the door, he exhaled and tried to concentrate. He wasn't in too much trouble yet. Certainly not enough to call the others. Heck, maybe guards coming after him was keeping them off the rest of his team. But he was definitely not making the progress toward the communications room from which the distress signal was allegedly issuing.

Once his heart rate was back to normal, He opened the door and peered out. All clear. He thought he could hear footsteps clacking along somewhere distant but not too distant. Still patrols, but not nearby. OK. He could do this, Just a little more and he'd be there.

The halls were surprisingly empty - even the sound of footsteps faded, and while he kept creeping along with all the stealth he could muster, it was starting to feel a little like overkill, until at last the door to the communications room loomed, large and metallic, to his right. Keith sidled up to it, weapon at the ready, and examined the entrance. No way to see through the door. No windows. He'd have to go in. Could be a trap. Could be anything.

Keith palmed the security sensor and the door slid open. He stepped smartly into the doorway, sword up, to find...

Nothing.

He slipped into the room, letting the door shut behind him. No point advertising his location to anyone who happened to wander by. It seemed a little barren for a communications room, with just a single, silvery chair before a somewhat complicated-looking bank of tech he didn't recognize, shot through with brilliant azure lights between the keys and buttons.  No one was here. No trap, so that was good, but... no one looking for help either. Had whoever signaled them  been caught?

He turned one more slow circle, looking for any sign of what had happened. Then, over the communicator, he said, "Hey guys? there's nothing here. Should I search the area, or just head back?"

The voice that answered him wasn't familiar, and it wasn't  over the communicator.

"Oh," a druid said, seeming to materialize out of thin air, "I think you should stay here."

______________

Eating that cannon blast had  _ really _ knocked Yellow a ways back from what he guessed was the original combat arena. As his lion limped back toward where the rest of the lions waited, he fought off a itchy desire to stop, get out there and see if he could fix, or at least reduce the impact of, the damage Yellow had taken. There wasn't time, but it felt wrong, making his lion keep working so hard when he was so hurt.

The planet was huge - a mottled ball of gray and a greenish-blue from space. He couldn't see the other lions from here, but he had a location pinpointed. Just another minute, and he'd be there. They'd still be all right. They had to be all right. they-

Yellow lurched, changing direction so suddenly Hunk's head snapped to the side. He could hear a terrible squealing sound from all around, as though the lion's claws were dragging on metal. Hunk's eyes scanned the viewscreen, looking for whatever had interfered.

Nothing... nothing... then he caught it - a slight ripple of purplish light, expanding out toward the horizon. He pulled up, then came in at a lower angle. Again, they met something - a force field.

A Galra force field.

Instantly, Hunk had his eyes on space, looking for a ship, a station, something. Shields had to be projected from somewhere, right? Science out here was sometimes unusual, but the basic laws were the same. Yellow began circling the planet. Somewhere. It had to be somewhere,

It didn't take long to find them - four large warships, grouped in close formation. There was only one problem.

They were below him. Within the force field. In with his friends.

Hunk dove again, trying to batter his way through. The metal groaned around him. He could feel his own intensity mixing with his lion's. They would get through. They  _ had _ to get through.

On the communicator, he heard a scream.

______________

Pidge turned from the second console, where she'd been idly flipping through the base schematics looking for some sign of where best to strike to pry the Galra out of here, when her program signaled that it had finally gotten into the files she was looking for. She hurried to it and hunched over the screen, nose a bare two inches from the glass as she scanned the directory. Her program helpfully did a pretty good job translating the text, and about halfway through the list she found "assets" and, within that, a file of "prisoners and persons of interest."

She bristled at that a little. “Persons of interest?” Every single one of the people they threw in this file probably had people who missed them, people who were scared, or heartbroken, or even killed when they were taken. And if they knew what these prisoners were going through now...

The words blurred a little and she squeezed her eyes shut before a single tear could fall. She appreciated Shiro's honesty, she  _ really _ did. But hearing about his time in the arena -- seeing how, even now, it seemed to still affect him -- forced her mind to sometimes paint terrifying pictures of Matt, alone and scared and trying gamely to fight off something far bigger than he, more terrifying than anything they could have imagined when on Earth.

She'd never heard her brother scream in real life, but in her nightmares...

Something buzzed and she opened her eyes again. No time for these thoughts. Set them aside and look,  _ look _ ! Her eyes obeyed, scanning the list of names and species and pictures until finally coming to two so like her own.

It was them. They were here.  _ They were here! _

They were... what did that notation mean?

Blood running cold, she tapped into the surveillance system. There was never a lack of cameras in the detention areas, so she had a really good view of her father and brother, hands behind their backs.

Facing a full half dozen Galra, with their weapons drawn and pointed straight at her family.

______________________

"I've got a location. Take your first left."

Pidge’s calm voice threw Lance momentarily back to the maze, to Keith and his awful, awful directions. (Well, Ok, he knew that their miscommunication was almost definitely at least a little bit his fault too, but still…) . Luckily, Pidge was either a whole lot better about giving directions, or at least was a whole lot better at giving directions to HIM, because she seemed to chime in at just the right time, alerting him to turns, to patrols, to doors at the perfect moment so that he could adjust his path in stride.

The patrol he had defeated a few minutes ago seemed to be an isolated incident -- the halls were wide and largely empty, with the few galra in the area easily circumvented thanks to Pidge’s instructions. Bayard at the ready, he sprinted down one hallway, keeping an eye out for cameras. 

If they were there, they were well hidden.

The entrance to the detention area stood closed, locked, but unguarded. “Pidge?” he said as he moved toward it, slowing a little.

“Five seconds,” she said. There was a pause, then, “Three. Two. One.”

The door slid open with a hiss. 

Lance slowed further as me moved through, coming to a stop just on the other side of the armored door. Aside from the entrance behind him, there were four other directions he could take, all spreading off from this small guard room like the points of a star. He had barely checked the four halls and found them similarly empty when Pidge said, “looks like the fastest route is the first hall on the right. Most of the cells are empty. There are five with beings in them. Let’s get them all out of here.”

“You’ve got it,” Lance replied, jogging down the first hall to the right. 

Moving through a jail was almost always nerve-wracking, but what made it worse right now was the quiet. No prisoners, OK, but no guards? Not even on the door? Lance’s jog slowed a little. This felt wrong, it all felt wrong. But there were people in here who needed help from Voltron. He was going to get them out.  _ They  _ were going to get them out.

He slowed even further, stopping just before a blind corner. As his footfalls faded and died, he could hear something else.

Voices.

“Get moving. You are required to come with us, but you don’t have to keep all your limbs to do so.”

“Hey, get off him. Dad!”

“Stay back!”

Lance chanced a glance around the corner just in time to see a galra soldier using the back of his gun to knock someone across the hall into the far wall. 

For a moment, Lance’s heart stopped. He knew, he  _ knew  _ that Pidge and her brother looked so alike that when Hunk had found that picture of the two of them, they’d mistaken him for her. But in his head, it was Pidge herself whose head bounced off the cold metal while a man - her father, it had to be - struggled against the arms of one of the soldiers.

Lance raised his gun and looked for his shot.

______________________________

“Guys?”

Keith took one step away from the druid, and then another. She - it? - was staring at him with a feral intensity that made him feel like a bug in the paws of a cat, just waiting for the claws and teeth. 

“You can’t reach them right now. That is for your protection.”

He backed up the last few steps to the door. It didn’t respond. 

“Oh, that won’t work.” Her voice was almost conversational, as though trying to reassure a small child. “This room is sealed off until I allow the doors to open. This is for your benefit more than mine.”

Keith’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the room. He’d let himself be lured perfectly. The frantic journey through the halls hadn’t left him as aware as he should have been, it was so  _ stupid… _

“What are you talking about?” he asked, making sure his communication line was on. Maybe the druid was telling the truth about him being cut off from them, but maybe not. No point precluding the possibility.

The druid leaned forward in her chair. “It’s hard to keep a young galra from using their claws,” she said, voice a picture of patience. “They are testing their limits. Learning their skills. It’s rare that someone like you comes along, so we may need to… prod you, a little, to get an idea of what skills you bring to the empire.”

“I don’t bring any skills to your empire.” He spat the word, swearing he could taste something bitter as his lips formed it. 

He almost didn’t recognize the sound that followed as a laugh. As the druid said, “I think you underestimate us. You paladins keep doing that. But here. Let me show you.”

And then his mind was awash in red.

_____________________________

“Pidge!” Hunk winced as his lion’s claws dragged down the force field, leaving growing pulses of pink and purple radiating out. He didn’t even make a dent. Yellow’s sensors were looking for anything outside the shield that could be maintaining the shell, but there was nothing,  _ nothing _ . “Pidge, talk to me!”

Noises came over the communicator, then Pidge’s voice, frantic. “We’re pinned down. We needed you here!” He winced, at how accusatory she sounded and how wrong that felt. “And my leg… Lance? Where are you?”

“Trying to work my way there but there’s too many of them!” They’d been friends long enough that even if it weren’t for the volume of Lance’s voice and the sound of laser fire, Hunk would have known something was wrong, horribly wrong. “I can’t get-”

The audio fizzled, then the line grew a whole lot quieter. 

Hunk felt like the cockpit of Yellow had suddenly filled with ice water. “Lance?” Again Yellow slammed into the force field, but it didn’t budge, nothing changed. He spoke again, voice so soft he could barely hear it even in his own head. “...Lance?”

Pidge cursed. “This can’t be happening! Hunk! We  _ really  _ need you to get in here.” 

He wanted to reassure her, but before he could, another sound came across.

“Oh no.” Keith’s voice was hushed, horrified. “The lions.”

And Hunk could feel Yellow’s horror as well when on the planet, a white explosion bloomed, growing in pulses and bursts, spreading across the mottled surface of the planet in a tide of force and fire. It came up as well, burning against the force field as it enveloped the whole atmosphere, and then the force field too failed and the heat washed out and sent Yellow tumbling. On the communicator, silence fell.

Utter silence.

As they finally floated free of the blast area, Yellow stopped responding. Everything was grief - he wasn’t sure where his ended and where Yellow’s began. They’d failed, they hadn’t been there to protect anyone, and now… and now…

The grief somehow managed to spike further as he and Yellow’s feeling united over the hollow, horrible loss. But there was panic too, and he knew the panic was his own as the lights around him began to flicker and dim, one by one.

“Yellow? No. No no no no no!” He tried to get the lion to respond, but the lights just kept going out. “No, please!  Please…”

...until the grief was only his own and everything went black.

_______________________

Two galra had their weapons mere inches from the backs of her father and Matt’s heads. Both men were kneeling, hands up in the air in a traditional pose of surrender.

A third galra was looking right at the camera. Right at her.

“Paladin of Voltron,” it said, holding its own firearm easy at its side. “Foolish paladin. Did you think we would not notice information on the same prisoners being sought over and over again, every time you were around?”

Her nails dug into the palm of her hand. Had they? COULD they? She’d been careful! “What do you want with them?” she demanded, heedless of the fact that he shouldn’t be able to hear her. 

But he responded anyway. “Initially we thought about trading prisoners -- we let them free and you surrender yourself,” he said. He sounded so smug, and on the floor her father and Matt were just staring at the ground. What had been done to them? Were they OK? She felt a slight sense of wrongness as she watched them - even if her father was here, should Matt be? But he  _ was _ , and they didn’t react as the soldier continued, “but then we figured, unless we had all the precautions in place, your fellow paladins would probably just free you. And so, we’re taking another tack. There is a price to be paid for standing in the way of the galra empire. And in your case, that price is paid in blood.”

He gestured.

She knew what he was going to do, but still felt startled by the suddenness, the brutality of it - one moment, her missing family was kneeling there, bowed but alive, breathing, shaking. Then twin pulses of light, and they slumped, unmoving, to the floor. Her father’s smile. Her brother’s laugh. Every memory, every love, every hope in their hearts.

Into nothing.

She screamed, full of rage and disbelief, and scrabbled at the screen with her hands as though she could claw through it to them, to make them pay, to make them undo what had been done. She screamed, and kept screaming as other galra rushed into the room. She fought then, a whirlwind of rage and light as her bayard hummed in her hands, hunting for blood, but there were too many, just too many.

And finally the screaming stopped.

__________________________________

Matt caught himself on the wall and glared back at the soldier, one hand balled into a fist as he braced himself there unsteadily. 

“Lance,” Pidge said, urgency threading her voice. “Lance, you have to do something.”

“I am.” But as he found one of the soldiers’ head in the crosshairs, his finger hesitated.  They were all close together, in confined quarters. None of them had seen him yet. This should be easy. And yet-

And yet it was like his finger had a mind of its own. Or was being controlled by some part of him he just didn’t want to admit to.

In the hall, Matt launched himself at the soldier who’d hit him. It momentarily took Lance aback - he didn’t get the feeling that was something Pidge’s brother would do, from what little he knew. But imprisonment with the galra could definitely do some awful things to a person.

The soldier got the gun between the two of them, but not well enough to actually shoot Matt. Instead, the pair were struggling for the weapon. The others raised their own guns.

“Lance!”

He focused on the nearest one. Gritted his teeth. Finally pulled the trigger.

Something flickered across his view just as the shot went off. A body hit the ground with a horrible thud.

“No,” Pidge whispered over the communicator as Lance stared in horror toward where Pidge’s brother lay on the ground, eyes open but unseeing, face turned right toward him. There wasn’t even a wound. Just a body. Just death.

Oh no. Oh no.

The bayard fell from his nerveless fingers, and he didn’t move, couldn’t move even as the other two galra soldiers began moving down the hall, taking aim and finally, finally firing.

______________________________________

Keith could hear the druid laughing, and he wanted to hate the sound, wanted to be angry, but it was like someone had taken all the wires in his brain and strung them all into a laser focus on something he didn’t quite understand. It was like a craving. He wanted something, needed it, but he didn’t know what.

“Ahh, child of the galra, it will be glorious to see you embrace your nature for the first time,” the druid was saying. “Even if you need a little bit of help to get there at first.”

_ I won’t let you do this _ , he tried to say as he fought to pull those wires, to swim free of the red. But it felt as though he’d become a prisoner in his own mind. Some instinct in his body made it turn, made it stalk across the room to the still-closed door. 

“Don’t worry, we won’t let you kill all your friends,” the druid said.

What?

Keith’s blood ran cold. What? Kill? Kill his friends? What were they-

“But it looks like we have one. That should do just fine for a test.”

His head tilted as he studied the door. He couldn’t even tell who caused the motion - if the druid was controlling him, or if it was something else, some parasite or - please no - some part of himself that he’d suppressed, something feral and bloodthirsty that haunted the corners of his mind. He thought he had felt it before, but he’d never felt he wasn’t in control of it before. 

The door hissed open revealing Allura.

There was a long frozen moment inside his mind, body tense, as he watched Allura’s face go from dark concentration to a relieved smile. She wasn’t supposed to be here, she should be in the castle. But here she stood, reaching a hand toward him. “Keith! We were so worried that-”

And then his body moved, a powerful, liquid lunge. There was only a single hitch in the motion as his knife pulled free from its sheath, punched through her armor and stabbed into her chest. She made a small noise, oddly feminine, and stumbled back out into the hall. Behind him the druid laughed, and inside Keith battered against the invisible walls between himself and the world, while his body stalked forward to stand before where Allura leaned against the wall. 

Her smile was gone and her breath came in labored gasps, but there was no weakness in her steel gaze as she watched him approach.  _ I was right _ , those eyes said. “This isn’t me,” he shouted, but his mouth remained still, set in a thin line. “No! Allura, run! Run!”

But even from the corner where he’d been locked, he could see there was no running for her. “Keith,” she forced out, then drew a shaking breath before saying, “I thought you were… stronger…”

His knife slamming into her throat cut off anything else she might have wanted to say, and as she slid to the floor, Keith lost his last grip on himself and fell endlessly down into the glow.

_____________________________________

Shiro stepped out of the darkness and into the glow of purple lights and the roar of a crowd, immense but hidden by darkness. The line of prisoners moved slowly as all of them, himself included, searched every angle for some sign of hope. Some escape.

There was none. 

The atmosphere had enough similarity to Earth events that Shiro could guess what was going on even before he saw the arena, smelled the mingled scents of alien blood. He stood behind Matt, but the difference in their heights meant he still had a good view -- depending on if you wanted to call the expanse of the arena a “good” view.

As they were still trying to take in what this all meant, a guard stepped forward, pointing a weapon at Matt.

_ No. _ Shiro’s legs were moving almost before the thought had entered his head. He brushed past Matt, charging to the front. No. No, if someone was going to enter the arena, it wouldn’t be Matt - peaceful, thoughtful Matt. Let it be him, let-

A foot planted in the center of his chest brought him to a stop, then shoved him powerfully back. He stumbled and fell to the ground to the side of the lines of prisoners. The guard strode up and stood over him,  _ towered  _ over him.

“What do you think you’re doing,” the guard growled, kicking him again and sending him rolling across the floor. “Weakling! We don’t need beings in the arena who are too pathetic to even make a good show of dying.”

Shiro rolled to his hands and knees, trying to push through the pain and the dizziness and demand that he wasn’t weak, he wasn’t, pathetic, he would put on such a show, they just had to take  _ him _ , him and not his friend. 

It felt weird, Shiro thought, trying to demand your right to die.

But the guard just laughed. He gestured, and two others came and started to drag Shiro back to the pens. As he was pulled back, Matt was gestured forward. He stepped up, then looked over his shoulder.

The fear haunting his eyes etched itself into Shiro’s soul. Shiro struggled, shouted, reached, but it was as though he were a child being restrained by adults. They brought him to the doorway, where they paused for a minute, not long at all. 

Long enough for one brief fight. Long enough for a terrified scream, cut short, to join that haunted look in his mind before he was dragged back to his prison again.

Alone.

_______________________________________

In the quiet of a dark cave, Erirozz stands with one foreleg on a green, glowing pod. The human within twitches and tried to curl in on itself, its shock of white hair floating lazily in the dreaming liquid. This one… its dream lingers the longest before rolling over and restarting, as though his mind wants to draw out the horror that he created.

It had been so difficult, catching this prey - separating them, cornering them, imprisoning them and sending them to the sleep. But now he can feel it, feel them all. Their dark dreams are so similar, but not the same. And this one…

Its mandibles click as it turns away to patrol the caves once more. Make sure there are no others wandering. It hopes there are not.

The nightmares of these five - especially that one - will nourish it for a long, long time and it wants to enjoy them.


	2. The Silence and the Stillness

Hunk couldn’t shake a strange feeling of wrongness as Yellow battered against the force field. The lion’s urgency mirrored Hunk’s own, with their teammates under glass with the galra. They were needed. They weren’t there. They were failing.

_They were failing._

It was a terribly familiar feeling. But as Hunk struggled to reach his teammates over the communicator, he could feel a sense of something like futility settling in. Like he’d seen this before. Like he knew how it ended.

“No,” he said aloud, trying to smack himself on the cheeks but just managing to smack the sides of his helmet.  No giving into despair. That would only - 

“Hunk! Where are you!”

Lance’s terror and … and horror? leeched into Hunk’s bones and the odd feeling vanished. His friends were in danger. He had to get  _ in _ there.

_____________________________________

  
Pidge felt a creep of sweat across her forehead and resisted the urge to pull her helmet off to wipe it clear. Seconds later, the screen distracted her by displaying the information she was after. Files on her father and brother popped up, and for a moment Pidge felt a flash of surprise. Both? But hadn’t they gotten intel about Matt? 

She frowned at the text. Matt… what was it? She should just be glad about finding them both. Both here. But for some reason…

No, she had to focus! “Lance, I have the coordinates,” she said. “I need you to-”

She broke off as a stab of something else -- something almost like a guilt, but a guilt deeper than any she could remember before, sorrowful and full of loathing -- radiated so hard that for a moment, it felt hard to breathe. Her hands clutched at her chest. What…

“Pidge?”

She took a deep, shaky breath, the sudden feeling fading before her concern.

Her family. She had to get her family.

______________________________

Erirozz curls into its nest, front legs dragging along the stone walls. Good things are worth fighting for, and five strong sources of quintessence, five fonts of energy like this, they are good. It tricked them, it defeated them and it will keep them!

But they are something it has not encountered before. They are not the first group it has captured. It has even managed to ensnare some beings with powerful telepathic abilities. Theirs was a richer flavor than it found in other types of beings. But once they were in the pods, once they were in the sleep, their talents were as useful to them as all the armies, all the weapons, all the money. Their cries had battered against their confinement until they faded away like any other.

So why? Sparks fly where its legs scrawl across the wall as it turns abruptly, orienting on the green one’s pod, making slight changes to that one’s dream to paper over the attempts to pull out of the illusion.

How? How do they hear each other?

It’s not much. They are not talking. Not planning. They do not realize what is happening. But when one of them feels something strong, something overwhelming, it seems to reach the others. And those feelings are throwing off the equilibrium in the other dreams. 

It does not have curses, not in its language, but it feels anger at itself welling up.  It should have known to be more careful. They are strong. It should have just killed some.

Its eyes narrow. Maybe it still can.

_______________________________

Lance swore he could feel his hand shaking. He couldn’t see anything - the sights were rock-solid as he trained his gun on the soldier. But the feeling was there, that his hand was just waiting to betray him. 

Matt’s sudden lunge surprised him. The guy he attacked tried to get the gun up, but he wasn’t quite fast enough. As Lance watched it all, unseen and unexpected, he tried to quash the nerves, quash the shake, quash the realization that he wasn’t going to be able to help.

No. Lance closed his eyes briefly against the sudden, unexpected sensation. He was right there. From this close, how could he possibly miss?

“Lance! He’s going to get shot!”

Lance exhaled and pulled the trigger.

________________________________

The button depressed under Keith’s palm, but silence - expected, hated - followed.

“Oh, that won’t work.” The druid’s voice was almost conversational, as though trying to reassure a small child. “This room is sealed off until I allow the doors to open. And this is for your benefit more than mine.”

Keith scanned the room. There HAD to be another way out. He  _ couldn’t _ have been stupid enough to let himself get cornered, blocked in. The frantic journey through the halls hadn’t left him as aware as he should have been, it was so  _ stupid… _

His stomach twisted, and for a moment - just a moment - he felt an almost overwhelming sense of betrayal - not that he’d been betrayed, but that he’d somehow betrayed them by being this stupid. A paladin of Voltron, basically walking into the hands of the enemy!

Except… that didn’t really feel right. He hadn’t given anything up yet. He made a fist, feeling the pain of the tightness of his fingers. He hadn’t betrayed anyone. And he wasn’t going to.

“What are you talking about?” he asked, making sure his communication line was on. Maybe the druid was telling the truth about him being cut off from them, but maybe not. No point cutting off the possibility.

____________________________________

As the explosions started on the planet’s surface, Hunk heard Keith start to say something, but his voice got cut off with abrupt finality in a flare of static. No one else spoke.  Just silence on the comm. The entire world was blooming in fire and light. Gone. Gone, everything was gone, and it was his fault. He wasn’t there, he hadn’t been there to protect his friends, it was his fault, he had caused this-

The feeling of wrongness intensified as he felt Yellow go still around him. Hunk drew a shaking breath, closing his eyes against the lights, one by one, dying on the console. 

It was that guilt. It felt wrong. Under the grief, heavy as a mountain, he could also feel his own desperation - to hear his friends again, to stop Yellow from withdrawing from him as well, to find out where the castle was, with Allura and Coran. And there was regret, thrumming like a bass line under it all - he should have  _ been  _ there, should have helped them. This was all him - he could feel where each of these horrible feelings was stemming from. But the guilt…

Oh, there was guilt that he owned, twining in with the regret and the grief like mingled vines on a wall. But it was muted. Getting knocked out of a fight tanking a canon blast that might have done far more damage to one of the other lions? It was horrible, regrettable, but he hadn’t done something wrong. 

But the guilt lanced through everything else like a streak of fire across a nighttime sky, feeling both foreign and personal. _ I did this. This is my fault. They were right, I should never have come with them, I’m a danger, a danger to them all, and I don’t even know how much of a danger- _

And the darkness became complete.

_______________________________

The dark behind Hunk’s eyelids abruptly brightened, and he opened his eyes with a groan, straightening up to see the readouts of the yellow lion alive with lights and warnings. He squinted at them, head feeling fuzzy and sluggish, like in the depths of a bad sickness. 

And in the back of his mind, a sense of guilt continued to dig at his consciousness with fading, dulling claws.

Wait. Continued? 

He actually gave his head a sharp shake, hoping the motion might snap some clarity into his thoughts. What had he done to feel guilty about? What had set all the warning lights going? He could feel Yellow, but there was no urgency in their connection. The guilt… it had come just after… after…

He groaned to himself. He hadn’t ever had a real, serious hangover yet, but this? This HAD to be how they felt. That weird, guilty feeling was slipping away, but little bits of it still gnawed at him.  _ I did something? I caused… whatever emergency this is? _

He reached out, fingers moving hesitantly over the display. “Hey, fella, what’s going on?” he asked, both hoping and dreading that the lion might actually know what had him feeling so rattled. The systems showed damage. Some kind of big hit, but the actual data on the battle, on what had happened, evaded his attempts to access it.  _ I must really have hit my head if I can’t even remember the controls.  _

As he puzzled over it, the communicator crackled to life and Pidge’s voice overpowered the metallic hum of the cockpit. “Hunk! Oh man, when you took that cannon shot and got knocked through that asteroid, we were worried! Where ARE you?”

Asteroid? Would he feel guilty about getting knocked through an asteroid? “I… I’m not sure,” he said, voice a little shaky. “Something feels wrong. My head…”

A few seconds of silence followed, before Pidge said, “You were out for a while. Maybe you have a concussion? But Hunk, we really need you to get here.”

He could hear a hissed strain in her voice - was she hiding from someone? This was not good. “How bad is it?” he asked, checking over the readouts to see if he could find where the other lions were and trying to shake everything that was keeping him from concentrating, he just needed to  _ concentrate  _ for  _ two seconds please _ . But the guilt lingered -- or the memory of it did. Guilt like fire across the nighttime sky, when all he should have felt was-

_ Grief _ .

A memory can sometimes drag with it all the sensations of that moment, all the scents and sounds and feelings. It hit him all at once -- grief like a physical blow struck, clearing his head slightly and chasing out the guilt. Hunk’s breath hitched as he caught pieces… Lance unable to hold the fear at bay. The growing darkness. Keith’s voice.

_ Oh no. The lions- _

He squeezed his eyes shut again. Dead. What was… a dream?

“Hunk! Hunk focus!”

It was Pidge’s voice, but it wasn’t. He knew the note of impatience in her voice. He provoked it more often than was probably healthy for either of them, but she just made such  _ cool  _ gear and he couldn’t help but mess with it. And this was that exasperation - tired and frustrated, but not worried. Not yet. If they were in the middle of a fight…

“Something’s wrong.”

“What was that? Hunk, we really need-”

“Something’s wrong.” Saying it out loud made him more aware of it. “You guys wouldn’t just leave me alone if I got blasted to the other side of forever and wasn’t responding.”

“It was an emergency.” Was that a hint of agitation in Pidge’s voice? “We had to-”

"No.” Conviction filled him now. Bits of events, like the memory of a dream, trickled back, and it was all his friends’ voices, all right, or almost right, but little things were off. And then they’d died, but now they were here…

So it had been a lie. A cruel, horrible lie.

_ Thank goodness. _

Silence, for a few seconds. Then Pidge’s voice again, tense and tight. “Hunk, I don’t know what’s wrong, but we need. You. Here. NOW.”

At the stress in her voice, the part of him that cared about Pidge, that worried about his friend, almost responded. He caught himself just in time, and asked the question that he hadn't until now realized should have been on his lips from the start.

“Pidge, where’s Shiro?”

“He’s infiltrating and his comm is set to silent,” she responded, terse and impatient. “Why are you wasting time?”

Yeah, this was clearly off. “He’s not here,” Hunk reasoned. “You guys aren’t right. Am I having some sort of weird hallucination or something?” He thought another moment. “Oh god. Those mushrooms from that weird orange planet?”

“Hunk!”

And there was the final straw. Pidge, not exasperated or even angry but full-on enraged. He thought he’d maybe heard her like that once, and after he understood the circumstances of that moment, he’d never wanted to repeat it. And in this situation… “You’re not Pidge. If this isn’t a hallucination, who are you?”

The communicator crackled, then went silent. Out the screen, the planet faded into the darkness.

“Oh,” Hunk said, staring as the stars started going out, one by one. “Ohhh, man…”

___________________________________

Allura slumped back against the wall, eyes hard, mouth set in a thread-thin line. Keith swore his fingernails were dragging down some physical barrier as he tried to claw back into control, even if it didn’t make sense.

“Run!” he shouted -- it felt like he’d shouted that a hundred times. But Allura just stared, just watched, just accused as the knife slammed home with finality.

Of the many things Keith expected to feel in that moment -- horror at himself, grief for what was happening, anger at the galra who were doing this, even an intense regret that he hadn’t stopped it -- the rising spike of fear was not among them. Red light swallowed him, an endless sea of someone else’s wrath and glee, but it was the fear like an icicle that stabbed into his chest, dominated everything as red faded to black.

Which is why when the lights came back on a peaceful hallway, and he sensed no danger but felt neck deep in a fight-or-flight struggle, he knew something was very, very wrong. 

“Shiro?” he said into his headset.

No one answered. Just silence. 

“Shiro. It’s important,” he tried again.

Nothing. 

There were reasons, good reasons, why Shiro might not answer immediately in the middle of a mission, but that fear intensified, fear far beyond a simple mission to save the people on this out-of-the-way base from the galra. For lack of a better word, that fear was familiar. This… no. Something was very, very wrong. 

He ducked into a nearby room and crouched in one corner. “Pidge?” He tried. “Lance? Hunk?” In his mind, despite all evidence to the contrary, the entire universe was disappearing. His breath was starting to come faster and faster, even though there was no reason to panic. 

This didn’t make sense. There was nothing to be this scared of here. Unless…

Unless something was in his head. There were being out here who could do that, right? The druids probably could. Lance and Hunk had encountered something that could do something similar in the underwater land they’d visited - neither one talked about it much, but it had sounded pretty serious. Keith had jokingly (well, semi-jokingly) said he wanted to kill Lance before. While both of his teammates had brushed off questions about that little adventure, it sounded like the mind control had quite literally had Hunk trying to do just that.

“Who’s there?” he asked of the empty air, feeling half foolish and half just angry. He wasn’t sure if the anger was at someone daring to intrude on his mind, or at the fact that at the moment, he had no idea what was real. Was this quiet room reality and the fear was projected, or was his mind reacting to a very real threat while his senses perceived a false calm? 

“Get out of my head!” He tried again, the words thundering around in his head. “Get out of my head!”

________________________________

Keith’s eyes snapped open to a swimmy world bathed in pale smears of orange and pink light. He blinked a couple times before the realization set in -- liquid. He was in liquid. Immersed. Underwater.

He kicked upward, reaching out a hand, groping for air, but his fingers only brushed the edges of his prison. He punched at it, then looked frantically around again. The lights were all shining from one direction, distinct but not clear through the hazy liquid. Trying to suppress rising panic, he moved to that side of the little enclosure. As he neared the edge, things became clearer, until his hands chanced up against plastic, or glass, and tantalizingly, impossibly close beyond he could see a stone cave, lit by indistinct blobs that he guessed to be bioluminescent plants or fungus. 

Not important. His lungs were screaming , and he clapped a hand over his nose and mouth to try to keep himself from inhaling. They must have  _ just  _ dumped him in here, so there had to be a way out. There had to be.

Except there wasn’t. 

He scoured the edges, both with his eyes and with his free hand, but nothing, nothing, nothing! And at last his body overrode his mind, and he drew a deep, ragged breath of the slimy liquid that surrounded him.

The liquid flowed in, heavy and unnatural… but not suffocating. It surprised Keith into stillness for a moment. Whatever this was… he could breathe it? The relief at this revelation was chased quickly by a new panic. If he could breathe this liquid, he might not have just been dropped in here. If he hadn’t just been dumped in here, then how long had he been in here? Where even  _ was  _ he? He was clearly a captive -- if he were in a tank of breathable liquid for beneficial reasons, would it just be stuck in the wall of a cave? But where were the others?

Well, first things first. He groped around to get a good feel for the size of the container. It was roughly egg shaped, a little taller than he was with his arms stretched over his head. However, it was much narrower across. Once he was sure he had a feel for the dimensions, he faced the clear wall, braced his hands and back against the opposite side, then swung his feet up against the window. The liquid made this fairly easy, actually. Thus situated, he set his shoulders and  _ pushed _ .

Nothing happened.

He strained against it for several more seconds before relaxing  a bit. Then he lifted one foot and stomped down. It shuddered, and the impact sent a strange, brittle sound through the liquid. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. And again. And again.

On the fifth kick, the entire tiny world shattered.

The sound of the wall breaking under his heel filled the space, then everything was rushing forward and out. The bottom edge of the glass or whatever it was scraped against the back of his armor as he was dumped out with the liquid and he landed on his butt on the stone.

Immediately he rolled to his side, up on one elbow, retching and coughing out the horrible, goopy liquid. It tasted like the smell of fresh-turned earth, and seemed to be everywhere -- his stomach, his lungs, his hair. He lost track of how long he sprawled there, heaving and gasping and just trying to make breathing air feel  _ normal  _ again. His throat hurt, his lungs burned and there was a strange tingling in his feet and fingers that he couldn’t seem to flex away. 

After what seemed like an eternity, he managed to push himself to his hands and knees, then get to his feet, staggering out of the puddle of goo and making it to one wall, against which he leaned. The goop was drying over his skin now, turning tacky. That somehow made it more disgusting.

As he sagged there, he tried to clear his mind, but it was hard. He felt exhausted, heavy, and disoriented. Was this reality even reality? 

Was there any way to tell?

He moved toward one of the two exits of the room, trying to think. He needed to find everyone else. He needed for his head to just work right for two frigging seconds…

That thought came to a screeching halt as he heard something -- a scuff. A footstep. And then a voice. 

“K… Keith?”

**Author's Note:**

> So... this was started before season 3, and some of it doesn't exactly work with what we know from later seasons. My apologies. *bows* I also can't guarantee a timeline, but my hope is to edit/finish a chapter every 2-3 weeks. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!


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